Justin Sun makes alarming claims over the Coinbase fee structure to list crypto assets on the exchange. He stated that the US’s biggest crypto exchange asked him to pay 500 million TRX (approx. worth $80 million).

This comes in against Brian Armstrong, Coinbase CEO’s, recent comments where he suggested that asset listings on his crypto exchange are free and even offered help to Moonrock Capital CEO Simon.

Coinbase and Binance accused of high stakes demands

Simon Dedic in an earlier post had stated that a Tier 1 project that raised close to nine figures finally received a listing offer after wasting more than a year of due diligence with Binance. He added that the world’s biggest crypto exchange by trading volume asked the project for 15% of their token supply.

He indicated that paying $50 million to $100 million for a listing on a centralized exchange is unaffordable for projects and these tokens are also the biggest reason for bleeding charts. Coinbase CEO took the opportunity to promote its self-claimed free listing.

Andre Cronje jumped into the matter and mentioned that Binance charged $0 to them while Coinbase asked them for $300 million, $50 million, $30 million, and recently $60 million. He refuted Armstrong’s claims of free listing. 

He added that he is not under any NDA and can happily provide proof of requests made by multiple Coinbase employees. Cronje highlighted that these requests were made over multiple years via email, Telegram, and Slack.

I am not under NDA, so I am very happy to provide proof of the requests (from multiple CB employees / divisions over multiple years, on email, telegram, and slack), now sure, CB can argue it isn’t a “listing fee”, but it is a “earn fee” which still translates into “cost to be…

— Andre Cronje (@AndreCronjeTech) November 3, 2024

He hinted that Coinbase can argue that it wasn’t a “listing fee” but it was an “earn fee” which still translates into “cost to be listed”. However, he even got ready to post all the evidence on social media and let the public decide.

Justin Sun called out a similar situation faced when he tried for a Coinbase listing. He alleged that the exchange asked them to pay 500 million TRX and even demanded a $250 million Bitcoin deposit in Coinbase Custody to boost their performance.

Binance co-founder responds to listing fee drama

Yi He, a Binance co-founder, tried to clear the air about the emerging issue. She stated that if a project does not pass the screening process then it cannot be listed on Binance regardless of the amount of money or tokens involved.

She added that the world’s biggest crypto exchange has listed projects in the token distribution column and asked the people to analyze the percentage to know if there is a so-called 20%, 15%, or similar.

Yi He highlighted the rules for airdrops through Binance’s launch pool and other listing methods. She neglected that any project willing to offer airdrops could be listed on Binance. Meanwhile, she praised Cronje who dared to speak the truth amidst the noise.